Category: Animals – Dogs

“If this sort of thing keeps growing, it won’t be long before we shall hear of dog undertakers, and perhaps marble cutters who devote their time and talent to the construction of monuments to pet dogs. There is no calculating the extent to which infectious folly will go.”

The Saint Paul Globe, 25 November 1888.

Sous le Berceau by Eva Gonzalès, 1879-1880.

Of all the animals buried and mourned in the Victorian era, it was dogs who received the lion’s share of the funerary honors. The Hyde Park Dog Cemetery opened in London in 1881 and the Hartsdale Canine Cemetery in New York—the oldest pet cemetery in the United States—opened in 1896. One might think that this indicated a normalization of dog burial and mourning. However, as late as 1901, there were still those who railed against the idea of funerals for dogs, calling the practice ridiculous and absurd. One French bishop even went so far as to formally denounce the dog funeral fad in a religious publication, decrying “the lack of decent feeling on the part of modern society women.” 1[…]Continue Reading

The nineteenth century news is filled with reports of hero pets rescuing their masters and mistresses from various catastrophes. Dogs routed burglars and saved children from drowning, while cats meowed the alarm when the house was on fire or when a family member had stopped breathing in their bed. Both cats and dogs were also known to intervene in cases of spousal abuse. For a battered Victorian wife, this animal intervention could sometimes mean the difference between life and death. […]Continue Reading

In the mid-nineteenth century, Charles Dickens had a small, shaggy Havana spaniel named Timber Doodle. Dickens had acquired Timber during a visit to America and the little dog soon became his constant companion, even accompanying him on his travels. It was during one of these foreign excursions that Timber suffered from a very severe infestation of fleas. The solution was extreme. As Dickens relates in an 1844 letter:[…]Continue Reading

An 1879 edition of the Huddersfield Chronicle reports the story of a little fox terrier named Wasp and his owner who, at the time, was a student at a college in London. Wasp was devoted to his master and would follow him wherever he went—including on the train to school each morning. While his master attended classes, Wasp would remain in the courtyard of the college, dozing in a patch of sun and “to all appearances asleep.” Despite appearances, however, Wasp was always watching anxiously for his master’s return and those passing through the courtyard would often observe “one watchful eye unclose gently to spy if his master were soon coming.”[…]Continue Reading

“A dog is more difficult to dress than a lady, however capricious she may be.” M. Vivier, Pearson’s Magazine, 1898.

The Actress Rejane And Her Dog by Giovanni Boldini, 1885.

Wealthy and aristocratic ladies of the 1890s who desired to dress their dogs in the latest styles travelled from far and wide to visit the Paris salon of fashionable canine tailor Monsieur Vivier. Located in the Galerie d’Orleans at the Palais Royal, Vivier’s establishment welcomed dog owners from all over the world. He was famous for his canine haute couture. So famous that some compared Vivier to legendary fashion designer Charles Frederick Worth—a fact which Vivier proudly acknowledges in an 1898 interview in Pearson’s Magazine, calling himself “the Worth of Dogs.”[…]Continue Reading